


Film Noir, Alternian Style

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Ashen Romance | Auspistice, F/M, Film Noir, Gen, Movie Night, Multi, Prompt Fic, Sexual Tension, Television Watching, Troll Culture, ashen porn is totally a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 20:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terezi makes Dave watch ashen porn.  (That's it; that's the story.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Film Noir, Alternian Style

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt fic for anonymous on Tumblr, who asked for _Dave and Terezi - "That should /not/ be sexy."_ It has been ever-so-slightly edited from the version posted on Dreamwidth and Tumblr.

Dave stared as one of the gang responsible for the string of high-profile blackmail schemes in the Fleet's sector command ships stormed into the scene and forced herself between the two legislacerators. Their teeth actually ripped out of each other's lips as the new arrival shoved them bodily apart.

Beside him, Terezi's breath caught in her throat. She leaned forward, tongue darting out to better taste the scene playing out on their newly alchemized private movie screen. Which, okay, Dave was not into bloodplay, but after Karkat's rants he was at least down with the concept that trolls liked hatesex as much as cuddly shit... so why was his best girl _happy_ to see someone breaking up the action?

He nudged her ankle with the toe of his shoe, then kicked a little harder when she didn't seem to notice. "Hey, I thought you said this was a morally ambiguous crime flick with a heavy romantic subplot. What's with the cock-blocking?"

"Shush, Dave, don't interrupt."

Dave looked back at the screen in case it had suddenly resolved into anything that made sense. But nah, still three trolls in the shot, and now the crook had one hand on each of the legislacerators' chests, nails digging through their uniforms enough to draw little beads of greenish-yellow and bluish-purple blood.

"--refuse to succeed in our plans merely because you idiots are letting your personal bullshit distract you from the chase," the crook was saying, "so pull yourselves together and start acting like the law instead of juveniles leaping at the first hint of black feelings without the slightest consideration for whether the rivalry is _constructive_ or a clusterfuck waiting to crash down on everybody's horns. I am _so embarrassed_ having to overhear your arguments -- and yes, that does mean you've been so careless you didn't even notice we hacked your comms -- that I was about ready to throw myself out an airlock and--"

It was bizarre how transfixed the troll cops were. They had the perfect chance to arrest the crook -- it was two against one, her hands weren't in any position to grab a weapon, and she didn't have psionics either -- but they just sat there and darted little starstruck glances at her from the corners of their eyes.

"Uh, Terezi."

"Shhhhh!"

"Seriously, T-Z, I gotta ask--"

Terezi reached up and back and clamped her hand over Dave's mouth.

He snatched the remote from her lap and hit pause. When she sniffed in surprise, he pried her fingers off his face. "Okay, time out. Oh great and all-knowing troll goddess, who made my universe and literally hung the moon and stars and all that jazz, tell me what the hell I just watched, because I have no clue. None of the clues. All the clues ran out the door, down the stairs, out into the streets -- they're homeless clues now, Terezi, lost in the cruel, heartless city, you gotta help me find them before they starve and start selling themselves, lose their precious innocence to the system, get rounded up by the--"

"Phllllbbbtttt!"

A troll tongue making a slobbery raspberry two inches from his face tended to derail a man's train of thought. Dave twitched and barely restrained himself from raising his hands to shield his shades.

"Dave, how many times do Karkat, Kanaya, and I have to explain quadrants to you? Rose listens! Why can't you?" Terezi said, swinging around to kneel on Dave's lap and poke at his sternum by way of emphasis.

"I told you this film has a heavy ashen romance subplot," she continued. "That means one auspistice managing an unstable potential blackrom and keeping it from spinning out of control. In this case, the moral ambiguity comes from the three participants' positions on opposite sides of the law. Reigao and Iviviu need Lawghost Entangle's aid to keep their partnership from imploding, and she can't help her attraction to them and their instability, but they're on a collision course where her gang's success in blackmailing the Admiress will mean their execution for failure, and their success in unraveling the blackmail scheme will mean her execution for crimes against the Empire. It's a classic conundrum of romance versus the ties of crew and duty, not to mention the auspisticism scenes are extremely sexy, so hand me the remote and let me get back to appreciating my culture."

Terezi held out an imperious hand, palm up.

Dave tapped the end of the remote against her fingers, but kept his grip on the gadget. "So, lemme see if I have it. Stopping people from having sex is sexy?"

Terezi stuck out her tongue. "Sometimes! It depends on what kind of sex, and who wants to have it, and a bunch of other things. There's not a lot of point in blocking ill-advised redroms, since those don't explode over the surrounding community the same way ill-advised blackroms do. Mostly intervention in those cases is just sad, though sometimes it can lead to black one-day stands! But when you intervene in an unbalanced blackrom, all that tension has to go _somewhere_ , and the sublimation... mmm, delicious! Here, let me jump back so you can watch the scene properly."

Dave let go of the remote and waited, skeptically, as Terezi slithered back onto her own sofa cushion and clicked around to the point where the two legislacerators had just entered the storeroom to set up their stakeout. "I know humans are sadly deficient in black emotions, but try to imagine you're Reigao," Terezi said, her finger hovering over the PLAY button. "You know your infatuation is out of hand and interfering with your work, but you can't stop hating Iviviu and you can't request a different partner until you close this case, but you can't close the case until you get rid of her, and all that tension snaps at the worst possible time and place. Got it? Now see if you can feel the romance."

She restarted the film.

Dave rolled his eyes behind his shades, but he tried idly to imagine himself into Green Legislacerator's place, stuck with Blue Legislacerator for weeks and weeks, everything going wrong, hating her more each day (or night, if that even applied on a spaceship). He could maybe see it, a little, if he took his occasional irritation and resentment toward Rose and magnified them about a bajillion times (and forgot the incest factor, of course). If he got stuck on some bullshit quest with only his ectosister for backup -- no Terezi, Karkat, or Kanaya to break that claustrophobic closeness -- yeah, he could see how he might snap.

On the screen, the two legislacerators were just starting to get hot and heavy, all teeth and nails and chucking each other up against the walls. And then out of nowhere, _bam_ , Crook Lady stormed in and took all that crazy stewing hate-hurt-rage and yanked its focus onto herself. This time, the abrupt shift in emotional balance left Dave a little dizzy.

Blue Legislacerator made an abortive reach for her knives, but Crook Lady just flexed her hand and stared, and Blue Legislacerator subsided, ducked her head almost meek except for the banked flare of _something_ in her eyes and the aggressive forward cant of her spiky horns. Green Legislacerator pressed himself up against Crook Lady's hand, like he was daring her to touch more and more of his chest, wanted her to make him bleed.

Crook Lady glanced down at him, a tiny smile quirking the corner of her mouth even though she didn't stop her rant for a second. She dug her nails into Green Legislacerator's skin. A trickle of blood seeped through his uniform tunic.

Dave's breath caught in his throat.

"You see?" Terezi said in gloating satisfaction.

Dave swallowed. He adjusted his shades. He very carefully didn't look down toward his lap.

"That," he said, "should _not_ be sexy."

"Such species-centrism! And yet I note that your choice of words strongly implies that you think the scene _was_ sexy," Terezi said gleefully. "Just you wait, coolkid. I'll make a troll of you yet."

Dave looked back up at the movie, where Blue and Green Legislacerators were watching Crook Lady stalk out of the storeroom with thunderstruck expressions on their faces.

He had a terrible feeling Terezi might be right.


End file.
